A Home for Demons
A Home for Demons
Last night I dreamt that I was ushered onto a marae to conduct the funeral service of an elderly Maori man, who had an English surname. As I approached the open casket, a bystander stepped out of the crowd and vigorously shook the dead body. I knew that as a consequence of this, the corpse would be re-animated...but not by God's power, nor by natural life. It would take place because of the supernatural activity of demons or evil spirits. This did happen. The man sat up and was "active", but he was not in fact alive!
"Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird." (Revelation 18.2)
"She named the boy Ichabod, saying, 'The glory has departed from Israel.' " (1 Samuel 4.21)
"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation." (Matthew 12.43-45)
This dream contains two warnings...one global and the other local; but they are nevertheless connected.
1) "Babylon the Great" represents all that is created and appointed to be faithful to God, but which in the end is proven to have been unfaithful, having had "intercourse" with others (not God) for personal profit and aggrandisement.
"This title was written on (the woman's) forehead...Babylon the Great. The Mother of Prostitutes (Harlots, Whores)." (Revelation 17.5) "The woman you saw is the great city that rules over the kings of the earth." (Revelation 17.18) "Their bodies (of the Two Witnesses) will lie in the street of the great city...where also their Lord was crucified (Jerusalem)." (Revelation 11.8)
"Go and proclaim in the hearing (cry in the ears) of Jerusalem...Long ago you broke off your yoke and tore off your bonds; you said, 'I will not serve You!' Indeed, on every high hill and under every spreading tree you lay down as a prostitute." (Jeremiah 2.1 & 20, also Isaiah 1.21 & Ezekiel 16.15)
The scholar-leaders of the Protestant Reformation in Europe in the 1500s, were virtually unanimous in their view that the Harlot in The Revelation was the unfaithful and apostate church of their own day! Their interpretation was correct, but much too narrow in its actual application.
Thus in the context of our own times (which are the End Times) this picture represents all those communities and organisations which claim their existence within both the Old and the New Covenants, but whose faithfulness to God is either non-existent or has been a comparative irrelevance alongside their "intercourse" with independent human nature, the world system and the devil.
According to The Revelation written by the Apostle John, these communities and organisations will be judged by God (chapters 17 and 18) immediately prior to the return and the enthronement of the Lord Jesus Christ. And the sharp-end of this judgement is that they become occupied and inhabited, not by what they claim to worship, but by the very power of that which they have bowed down to in their hearts and are in fact spiritually connected to. These communities and organisations, in spite of all religious appearances and creeds, become "a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit".
"I know your afflictions and poverty - yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of satan." (Revelation 2.9)
"They (Israel) wilfully put God to the test by demanding the food they craved...He rained meat down on them like dust...They ate till they had more than enough, for He had given them what they craved. But before they turned from the food they craved, even while it was still in their mouths, God's anger rose against them; He put to death the sturdiest among them, cutting down the young men of Israel." (Psalm 78.17-31 and Romans 1.21-24)
"For false christs and false prophets will arise, and will show signs and wonders, in order, if possible, to lead the elect astray. But take heed; behold, I have told you everything in advance." (Mark 13.22-23)
2) During the 1990s, New Zealand experienced a nationwide revival...which was sovereign and localised; it was not the consequence of supernatural events imported from other countries and by other ministries. It was a genuinely indigenous, spiritual awakening which was poured out, so to speak, of the clouds over the "Land of the Long White Cloud"...Aotearoa-New Zealand.
Tragically, that visitation died while yet in its infancy. The Church in New Zealand yet needs to acknowledge its existence, genuinely mourn its premature death, and then give it a decent burial. Only then will we be permitted to advance and embrace the next and new revival...unlike any to date and eclipsing all to date!
The great Jeremiah, looking ahead to our day and the end of ordinary human history, foresaw a time, unlike any other. "How awful that day will be! None will be like it." (30.7)
On a day like none other, we may legitimately anticipate a revival like none other. But if we keep camping around the corpse of a dead revival, from which the glory, power and presence of God have actually departed, then we do face a terrifying possibility and prospect! That the "old" is re-animated, (not by the Holy Spirit of Jesus) but by the power of the human soul and/or demons and evil spirits.
An outrageous assertion? I don't think so. Observe, the mighty Saul...Israel's first human king. In the space of his comparatively short lifespan, he declined from a wondrous and overwhelming experience of the grace and power of God's Spirit, to breaking the Law by resorting to deceiving a witch in order to communicate with the dead. (1 Samuel 10 and 28)
"The Spirit clearly (explicitly) says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons." (1 Timothy 4.1)
"Do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world." (1John 4.1)
